We need to act fast to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and to protect and restore biodiversity. There’s incredible potential in using AI to augment our work. It enables us to do things much more quickly – it’s like giving humans global knowledge superpowers!
It can turbocharge human capabilities, simulate complicated systems and search through vast amounts of data. It would help us make rapid progress in reversing the damage we’ve done to the planet with well-targeted interventions, while continuing to supply human needs.
Of course, this comes with risks of runaway systems causing harm, so everything we do must include a ‘human in the loop’ to guide what’s going on. AI systems have no capability for nuanced judgement.
Humans are generating vast amounts of information about our natural world. The imaging data alone spans every scale, from satellite and drone images of countries and landscapes, to land-based photographs of species and habitats, to microscopic observations of life. Alongside the visuals, conservation and climate scientists and practitioners are publishing an ever-increasing amount of written information on their ideas, experiments and real-world trials.
